


My Heart Broke (But I Have Some Glue)

by impertinences



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Murder House
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Post-Series, Self-Harm (implied), Short One Shot, Star-crossed, Suicide (referenced)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7782127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impertinences/pseuds/impertinences
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Violet tries to keep him out, to keep him away, and it usually works. She's got a strong will and her family's love. Still, maybe when she's tired or when her good juju starts to wear off, she can see him lurking at the edges of her vision. Sometimes he's with Hayden or the red-headed twins. Most of the time, he's alone. </p>
<p>This time, he looks more hungry than lonely. </p>
            </blockquote>





	My Heart Broke (But I Have Some Glue)

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Nirvana lyrics.

Violet tries to keep him out, to keep him away, and it usually works. She's got a strong will and her family's love. As a cynical, brooding child of the millennium, she never really bought into the whole nuclear- family-values bullshit, but it turns out that things like love and parenthood count for something once you've crossed over. 

(Even if it's a short cross, like theirs. More of a cross-and-stick. Not a complete journey.)

Still, maybe when she's tired or when her good juju starts to wear off, she can see him lurking at the edges of her vision. Sometimes he's with Hayden or the red-headed twins. Most of the time, he's alone. 

This time, he looks more hungry than lonely. 

Tate wears an oversized cardigan the color of camel hair. He keeps chewing on his thumb and bottom lip. When he runs his tongue over his mouth and taps his fingers on the arm of Ben's overstuffed office chair, his nervous pent-up energy slipping through, Violet feels her belly churn with lust. 

She closes her eyes, breathes a breath she no longer needs, and counts to three. She doesn't think of how his mouth feels as it climbs the insides of her arms, counting and tracing old scars with his lips, or the smell of his hair and the taste of his lopsided grin. 

When she gets to three, she can sense her mother behind her, warm and bright. Like amber and honey. 

Vivien has kind eyes. It's not a trait many inhabitants of the Murder House possess. She has soft hands to go with her soft gaze; she smooths them over Violet's back and shoulders, motherly, and shushes her fear. 

"Come on, sweetie. Let's go check on the baby." She puts her hand on Violet's arm like a guide, pulling her back. 

Violet used to think her mother was weak, but she knows better now. 

She's never going to have children. Ghosts and lost souls don't breed (Tate seems to be the exception with his rubber suit and mommy issues). Her womb is empty and thin, her pink walls as useful as rose colored wallpaper. It will stay like that, and she will stay in this house. 

With all of them. 

Tate included.

 

\--

 

It’s a lazy, sunny day and the house is quiet even though it’s still on the market. (The realtor has stopped showing happy families the old Victorian recently – too much bad energy, maybe.) It’s warm inside and the sunlight filters in through the high windows, pushing back all the shadows. Violet takes the safety of the moment to curl up on top of her bed. There’s a copy of Albert Camus’ The Stranger on the nightstand; she still hasn’t finished reading it, but she figures she has all the time in the world now. 

She closes her eyes and breathes. She thinks she can taste the dust particulars in the air, circling around her, and she wonders about bathtub suicides and dank crawl spaces. 

Sometimes she worries that she might just stay gone. She thinks resting like this is a kind of disappearing, and she's never really sure when she stops being away and starts pulling back into the ether again. If she thinks too long about it, she worries about things like eternity and God and worthiness. 

Violet opens her eyes. She's still in her room (if she’s not careful, she’ll wake up in different places of the house, disoriented), and Nirvana is playing softly from her wireless speaker. Typical. So typical. She can feel Tate buzzing around her space, the air thick between him as he takes advantage of her haziness. 

He’s lurking by the doorway, one sneaker crossing the threshold hesitantly. “Violet, c’mon. You can’t stay mad at me forever. I can’t … I can’t be without you. Don’t you know what you’re doing to me?” This is Upset Tate, which is different from Angry Tate, and different still from Psychotic Tate. Once, a year ago, she would have fallen for his cracked voice and alligator tears. 

Now, she just feels worn thin, like an old sweater – which is a funny thing, really, since her flesh and bones aren’t technically in use anymore. There is nothing more of her to be rubbed raw or threadbare. 

"… You know what rhymes with Tate?" She doesn’t even look at him. “Hate,” she huffs, half-hearted, amused by her less than spectacular wit. 

"So does fate." He doesn't even have the decency to look humble. He looks smug instead, like the cat who caught the canary. 

"You're so full of shit," Violet curses, rolling her eyes. “Why don’t you just put on your gimp suit and go fuck somebody else’s mother?”

“Is that what this is about? Are you jealous?” Tate’s voice is low; he’s practically mumbling, but his eyes are sharp. 

Violet doesn’t know how to respond. She stares at him, speechless. His brutality and warped ignorance baffles her. But she wonders, for just a moment, if it’s more than hurt and distrust that has severed their relationship. Is she jealous? Does she feel displaced, usurped by her older and more womanly mother? Did he like it – having her legs wrapped around his vinyl-clad hips, her mouth on his, her breathy moans in his ear? He must have liked it because he came. And isn’t that weird, that her half-brother is a product of her ex-boyfriend?

She rubs her eyes and wishes she had a cigarette. “Yeah, Tate. That’s why I can’t be with you. Not because you’re dangerous and unstable.”

He takes a step further into her room. His hand trails the doorway hesitantly, his fingers tracing the pattern in the wood like they used to trace her spine. “…I’m not like that. Not when I’m with you, anyway. You’re all I have.”

“You sound like a broken record. Kick rocks already.”

His hair hangs in his face. He pushes it away with both hands. Violet can see his frustration and his heartbreak. 

She can sense his longing, and maybe it matches hers, but she isn’t the same anymore.

She’s dead, and he’s dead, and it’s not enough. 

So, she rolls onto her side, showing him her back. With a pillow clutched to her chest, she closes her eyes. She breathes. She will count to three and wait. 

He won’t be there when she turns around, but he won’t leave her – not really. She knows that he’s trying to prove himself in the only way he knows how, and maybe that’s okay. 

He’s her burden now, and she’s his purgatory.


End file.
